August 15, 2010

Pencil Tip Sculpture

49-year-old Dalton Ghetti, a carpenter in Connecticut by profession, has been creating his tiny graphite sculptures for some 25 years.

He uses three tools — a razor blade, sewing needle and sculpting knife — to create his pieces.

He has never used a magnifying glass and has never sold a single work, preferring to give them away to his friends.

In an interview with Odd Stuff Magazine, he said, "I use the sewing needle to make holes or dig into the graphite.

I
scratch and create lines and turn the graphite around slowly in my hand."

More: "The longest Dalton has spent on one piece was two and half years on a
pencil with interlinking chains.

A standard figure will take several
months.

He said: 'The interlinking chains took the most effort and I
was really pleased with it because it’s so intricate people think it
must be two pencils.'"

And: "When Dalton, from Connecticut, USA, first started he would become
frustrated when a piece would break before being finished after he had
spent months working on it.

He said: 'It would drive me mad when I
would be just a bit too heavy handed and the pencil’s tip would break.

I would get very nervous sometimes, particularly when the piece was
almost finished, and then I would make a mistake.

I decided to change
the way I thought about the work – when I started a new piece my
attitude would be ‘well this will break eventually but let’s see how
far I get.

It helped me break fewer pencils, and although I still do
break them, it’s not as often.'"

Finally: "Dalton, who is originally from Brazil, has a box full of more than 100
sculptures that have broken while working on them that he
affectionately calls 'the cemetery collection [below].'

He said: 'I have quite
a few broken pieces so I decided to glue them on pins and into
styrofoam for a display case. People might think it’s weird I keep them
but they’re still interesting. I worked on them for months so they
might be dead now but at one point I gave them life.'"